SSPC Award for unique Muehlhan Coating Robot

SSPC Award for unique Muehlhan Coating Robot

The Muehlhan Group, global specialist for surface protection and complementary services, received the prestigious Structure Award for Innovations in Coating at the recent SSPC 2013 conference in San Antonio. The distinction honors a successful world premiere: the first fully automated, robotic-based coating process for complete wind tower sections.

Handing over the award to a Muehlhan representative, SSPC president Bill Shoup praised the robot as an “innovative approach for an economic, environmentally friendly and high quality coating procedure to help meet the future demands of wind tower manufacturers, especially for offshore applications”.

Muehlhan received the E. Crone Knoy Award for a coating project at a wind tower manufacturer’s site in Denmark. Working at the Welcon A/S plant in the town of Give, the Muehlhan team coated tower sections with several layers of high-level corrosion protection materials using the award-winning, innovative robots for both internal and external painting works. The project took 10 months to complete.

„We are very honored and proud to receive this award. It acknowledges our innovative power and it shows that our strategic focus on technology and R&D is the right step towards helping to shape the future of coating”, says Stefan Müller-Arends, CEO Muehlhan. The robot reflects Muehlhan’s corporate vision that the wind energy industry needs industrial solutions, particularly for its offshore operations. The unique robot system is designed to support the global turnaround towards alternative energy sources.

The technical benefits

The Muehlhan coating robot is extremely efficient, flexible and precise, reducing cost, material consumption, manpower and environmental impact. Here are some of the details:

Offers an annual coating performance of up to several hundred wind towers

Combines the proven Muehlhan automation technology with specially developed control software and tailor-made spray technology.

Prevents overspray and ensures an even coating thickness distribution.

Reduces paint consumption and VOC emissions by up to 25 percent.

The coating robots can be operated either in Muehlhan’s own coating halls or on-site at the customers’ manufacturing premises.